Sprayers are used for many purposes and the delivery of the liquid thereto requires pump operated means to deliver the liquid under pressure from the source to the sprayer.
Hides and other sheet materials for use in the manufacture of footwear, by way of example, are often sprayed, as they are carried along a conveyor, with a paint or other coloring or finishing liquid. The systems utilize relatively large containers for the liquids in order to permit their operation without interruption for convenient lengths of time but presenting a problem with liquids, such as paints, that contain particles that will settle unless stirred from time-to-time. The pressure on the delivered liquid must be regulated and held substantially constant to ensure its effective application with minimum waste.
Efficient sprayers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,426,973 and the co-pending application of Messrs. Ordway, Quinn and Comeau, Ser. No. 422,209, filed Dec. 6, 1973, now abandoned. Such sprayers have rotatable heads located above and centrally of the path of sheet materials and each head has a series of radial arms, each provided with a spray device. The sprayer disclosed in said application well illustrates the problem of pressure regulation since it provides for the delivery of spray from a plurality of sources and with the further provision that its spray devices may be operated either once or twice and for varying intervals on each rotation of the head.